Two for Friday – Drone Based Internet and Launch Monopoly

You may have heard recently that an airliner had a close call with a drone in Northern Florida, it was all over the news. This weeks drone news is a bit more ambitious, Google may use drones to deliver internet access to remote communities. This is a big idea indeed, the kind we like around here.

Have you ever been shut out of bidding on something knowing full well that you could deliver better value for the solution? You may want to rally behind Elon Musk in his effort to get the Airforce to allow SpaceX to bid to provide launching capabilities.

Googles Internet Delivery Drones (Titan Aerospace)

Elon Musk to Sue U.S. Airforce over Launch Monopoly

Googles Internet Delivery Drones

Google recently acquired Titan Aerospace and the word is that it could be used to deliver Internet access to remote communities. According to this Bloomberg video Google is so dominant in search that increasing the size of the Internet will also add a entire new source of customers. It will be interesting how this will work. Imagine in some remote areas serviced by these drones you may only have internet access during the day while the solar power can power the communications. Sort of like the un-stable power grids in many developing areas. It’s pretty awesome to think that it could even be possible to operate such a device 24/7 at some point and deliver internet anywhere in the world. The drones could climb to maximum altitude during the times of day where a surplus of power existed, charge the batteries, then start to gradually descend at night all the while providing internet access to an area.

Elon Musk to Sue U.S. Airforce over Launch Monopoly

Bloomberg had scooped some great news this month, we also saw the story about Elon Musk’s plans to sue the U.S. Air Force to allow SpaceX to compete to launch satellites. His (Musk’s) position is that it is costing U.S. Tax Payers billions, and I think he has a point there. No-one likes to be locked out of potential business where they know they can deliver value. I’d imagine it’s a pretty complicated web of law and national security but ultimately it may be the courts who will decide if this practice is fair and a precedent may be set paving the way for more great companies like yours to compete.

Have you recently run across something interesting that you think would fit in this weekly column? Let us know, in the meantime, be well and thanks for reading the latest edition of Two for Friday!

About Joe Hackman

I'm the founder of Managed Solutions, the voice of the blog here at managedsolutions.com, also of the ModernCIM twitter account and Chief Advocate at the Manufacturing Advocates Podcast. I help manufacturers eliminate waste in their engineering, CNC programming and machining departments. Contact me to discuss your challenges and aspirations to be the best at what you do.

[…] to use the legal system, but he picks his battles, you might have recently read about how he was challenging the US Airforce for what he called a “Launch Monopoly”. In the process he made some great points, why […]